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Old 06/11/07, 1:16 PM   #26 (permalink)
The Arcana
 
Silmeria's Avatar
 
Blood Elf Paladin
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by Bibdy View Post
Probably worth mentioning that Incinerate > Shadowbolt a lot of the time, also. Predominantly because its a 3s cast lowered to a 2.5s cast through Bane. The only time it ought to do more damage (unless you somehow stack the living shit out of fire damage) is with a 0/21/40 spec with a sacced Imp.
Not to nitpick, but I think you mean Shadowbolt > Incinerate. Just clarifying cause I got at least one warlock buddy who went "Whoa!" at me when he read this (if only he had read the entire thing...)
 
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Old 06/11/07, 1:44 PM   #27 (permalink)
Piston Honda
 
Bogeywoman's Avatar
 
Undead Warlock
 
Gorgonnash
Warlocks
...
- Imp Life Tap is still a necessary talent even if you have Dark Pact (hint, your imp doesn't have infinite mana).
Your imp has close enough to infinite mana, when Spirit and Int buffed, that the few extra mana you get from Imp Life Tap when you do find yourself having to use it are pretty inconsequential. For raiding builds, try 2/2 Soul Siphon for emergency healing and grinding help, 2/2 Imp Drain Soul for the threat reduction, and, if not hit capped, dump spare points into Suppression until you are. Even though it's affliction only, if you have dark pact, you're a heavy affliction build.
 
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Old 06/11/07, 3:48 PM   #28 (permalink)
Von Kaiser
 
Undead Warrior
 
Blackrock (EU)
Is there any Reason why a shaman cant drop windfury AND grace of air or another air totem with cycling his totems every 10 seconds, besides the wcds?
 
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Old 06/11/07, 3:52 PM   #29 (permalink)
Setting a bad example
 
Nite_Moogle's Avatar
 
Tauren Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by Anduryondon View Post
Is there any Reason why a shaman cant drop windfury AND grace of air or another air totem with cycling his totems every 10 seconds, besides the wcds?
Mana issues. 700 mana per 10 seconds is not a trivial amount. There is absolutely no way that this is more useful than spending mana on damage or heals during that amount of time.
 
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Old 06/11/07, 5:01 PM   #30 (permalink)
Von Kaiser
 
Undead Warrior
 
Blackrock (EU)
But basically, if you have enough mana for the given amount of time it would be the best choice, am i right?
 
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Old 06/11/07, 7:12 PM   #31 (permalink)
Von Kaiser
 
Murloc Mage
 
<Ret>
Mal'Ganis
A little note about the heroism/GCD issue..

http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=494412
http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=494411
http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=494409

I'm 100% positive I'm unable to chaincast scorches without getting spell not ready errors.

 
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Old 06/11/07, 7:52 PM   #32 (permalink)
Paid $25 To Raid
 
Draenei Shaman
 
Burning Blade
- If you have a DPS warrior in your group, you should probably drop Windfury totem regardless of the remaining composition of the group. A good rule of thumb is that if warrior*2 plus rogues is greater than 3, Windfury will be conclusively better regardless of the rest of the group's composition.
Wouldn't you say something like "A good rule of thumb is that if DPS Warrior * 2 plus non-Mutilate Rogues is greater than or equal to 3, Windfury will provide conclusively better DPS regardless of the rest of the group's composition."? (Could also be re-written as "greater than 2", if you like.) I think this is agreed on as true by most of the reputable theorycrafters and it also is more specific (for example, I sometimes drop GoA when I'm running Karazhan with a feral tank/undergeared Warriors in the group to push off more crushes: I'm well aware it's not the best DPS, but it's still "better".)
Windfury Weapon (the self enchant) has a 3 second cooldown incurred each time it procs, regardless of which hand procs it. For this reason slow weapons in both hands are preferable. The 'best' combination is dual Gladiator 2.6 speed weapons.
Well, there are better options than the Gladiator weapons available in BT (e.g. Rising Tide); also, if we're trying to eliminate extra posts or just having the option to linking people to the sticky I'd maybe split up these points, just so that people see it when skimming quickly:
- Windfury Weapon (the self enchant) has a 3 second cooldown incurred each time it procs, regardless of which hand procs; it has a scaling proc rate from 16% to 36% on each weapon strike (((I don't remember what the exact conclusion was on this, but seem to remember something like this from Disquette))). Even though this cooldown can no longer be bypassed by downranking the offhand, max rank Windfury Weapon remains the best-DPS enchant for use on both hands, primarily because it scales with Enhancement gear while other enchants do not.
- Slow weapons are preferable to fast weapons for use in both hands due to the Windfury cooldown. Currently, all weapons which have a flurried and hasted speed below 1.5 seconds (i.e. those with a listed speed of less than 2.0) are inferior to even high-level greens for DPS. The best easily-obtainable options are the 2.6 speed Gladiator weapons in each hand.

Last edited by Rob : 06/11/07 at 8:18 PM.
 
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Old 06/11/07, 8:14 PM   #33 (permalink)
Bald Bull
 
Shalas's Avatar
 
Undead Priest
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by Rob View Post
Wouldn't you say something like "A good rule of thumb is that if DPS Warrior * 2 plus non-Mutilate Rogues is greater than or equal to 3, Windfury will provide conclusively better DPS regardless of the rest of the group's composition."
No.
 
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Old 06/11/07, 8:25 PM   #34 (permalink)
Paid $25 To Raid
 
Draenei Shaman
 
Burning Blade
So then you think a group with a Warrior, a combat rogue, a shaman, and 2 druids would be better to drop GoA than WF? That disagrees with the vast majority of sentiment found in this thread. To clarify, the original post by Nite_Moogle suggests that 2x warriors plus rogues must be GREATER than 3, I'm saying it should be greater than or EQUAL to 3.
 
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Old 06/11/07, 8:28 PM   #35 (permalink)
Vontre's Wingman
 
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Night Elf Rogue
 
Elune
I find it funny that the thread that was supposed to stop these sort of debates just spawned another one.

Sorry Moogle.
 
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Old 06/11/07, 8:29 PM   #36 (permalink)
Setting a bad example
 
Nite_Moogle's Avatar
 
Tauren Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
I need to clarify my original post, Rob is correct in that I should have said greater than two, or greater than or equal to three but I am trying to avoid getting bogged down too much in details so I may leave the latter part off. The line is blurry enough depending on the level of gear and specifics of what the warrior and rogues are using that I am going to say it's just better for the warrior because of execute. I have a few more edits to do via PM and I will re-check the Bloodlust thing again tonight (I have access to a mage).
 
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Old 06/11/07, 9:01 PM   #37 (permalink)
Piston Honda
 
Troll Shaman
 
Drenden
Debate is always a good thing; as theories are examined and discarded or confirmed, Nite can always edit the original post.

As I understand it, assuming karazhan gear or greater, the only rogue spec that doesn't count in the "if warriors*2 + rogues >= paladins, shamans, hunters, feral druids then WF totem" is envenom. And that's not a PvE spec anyway.
 
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Old 06/11/07, 10:11 PM   #38 (permalink)
Don Flamenco
 
Gnome Warlock
 
Dragonblight
Originally Posted by slant View Post
Debate is always a good thing; as theories are examined and discarded or confirmed, Nite can always edit the original post.

As I understand it, assuming karazhan gear or greater, the only rogue spec that doesn't count in the "if warriors*2 + rogues >= paladins, shamans, hunters, feral druids then WF totem" is envenom. And that's not a PvE spec anyway.
A paladin dpsing would be another "warrior" in that calculation. WF is almost 20% dps for them (175 or so). Yeah, there are probably only 10 such high end raiding dps paladins in existence, so its not a key point, but they heavily favor WF as well.
 
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Old 06/12/07, 12:02 PM   #39 (permalink)
Information Overload
 
Kruthal's Avatar
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Kul Tiras (EU)
Originally Posted by Bogeywoman View Post
Your imp has close enough to infinite mana, when Spirit and Int buffed, that the few extra mana you get from Imp Life Tap when you do find yourself having to use it are pretty inconsequential. For raiding builds, try 2/2 Soul Siphon for emergency healing and grinding help, 2/2 Imp Drain Soul for the threat reduction, and, if not hit capped, dump spare points into Suppression until you are. Even though it's affliction only, if you have dark pact, you're a heavy affliction build.
"Close enough to infinite mana", what does that mean exactly? Some numbers please. Last time I checked this, full buffs placed the little guy at close to 400 mana/5 with full raid buffs (iMotW, DS, BoK, BoW, AI doesn't really matter past the first pact). Which puts Dark Pact quite a bit short of being enough mana-recovery.
 
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Old 06/12/07, 12:31 PM   #40 (permalink)
Setting a bad example
 
Nite_Moogle's Avatar
 
Tauren Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
Updated with some clarifications and additional notes. Thanks to the people contributing to this thread.
 
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Old 06/12/07, 12:34 PM   #41 (permalink)
Solution complicated; Dispense enlightening graph.
 
Anias's Avatar
 
Blood Elf Warlock
 
Mal'Ganis
Moogle, my thread on haste is:

[Mechanic Primer] - Haste - How it works, and what that means.


I'll be updating it as new data arrives if you'd like to link the title of the haste section to it.
 
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Old 06/12/07, 3:44 PM   #42 (permalink)
Great Tiger
 
Bibdy's Avatar
 
Orc Warlock
 
Bonechewer
Originally Posted by Silmeria View Post
Not to nitpick, but I think you mean Shadowbolt > Incinerate. Just clarifying cause I got at least one warlock buddy who went "Whoa!" at me when he read this (if only he had read the entire thing...)
Yeah, my bad.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.
 
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Old 06/12/07, 4:25 PM   #43 (permalink)
Bald Bull
 
tedv's Avatar
 
Undead Priest
 
Mal'Ganis
It would be nice to have a section on "What gems should I use?" since that topic comes up frequently. I know that for Tanking it's "+12 stam, always". And for Shadow Priests it's "+9 damage, unless it has a +damage set bonus. And even then +9 is often better".
 
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Old 06/12/07, 5:03 PM   #44 (permalink)
Von Kaiser
 
Human Warlock
 
Ghostlands (EU)
Originally Posted by Kruthal View Post
"Close enough to infinite mana", what does that mean exactly? Some numbers please. Last time I checked this, full buffs placed the little guy at close to 400 mana/5 with full raid buffs (iMotW, DS, BoK, BoW, AI doesn't really matter past the first pact). Which puts Dark Pact quite a bit short of being enough mana-recovery.

400mana/5 means you can dark pact for 1.6 k mana every 20 seconds. Considering the average casting sequence of Ua/corr/immo/coa/siphon/sb spam/refresh lasts about 18 seconds, it means that you can dark pact once every rotation.

As for the assumption that every raiding affliction warlock should have Imp. Lifetap, I strongly disagree. If you're deep affliction, you rely on dark pact, NOT on lifetap to get mana back. Lifetapping means you require healing/lose gcds using pots. As far as I'm concerned, lifetap just wastes gcd's and time that can be spent recasting dots, and I believe affliction locks only use it when they absolutely need mana that dark pacting can't provide at that particular moment. So putting 2 talent points in a talent used rarely is a bit wasteful, at least for dark pacting warlocks.

Last edited by wind : 06/12/07 at 5:06 PM. Reason: dark pact vs lifetap
 
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Old 06/12/07, 5:08 PM   #45 (permalink)
Setting a bad example
 
Nite_Moogle's Avatar
 
Tauren Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by tedv View Post
It would be nice to have a section on "What gems should I use?" since that topic comes up frequently. I know that for Tanking it's "+12 stam, always". And for Shadow Priests it's "+9 damage, unless it has a +damage set bonus. And even then +9 is often better".
This tends to get a little muddy for some classes (especially when Flurry starts getting involved), since then you're in to the area of stat prioritizing and budget equivalence which isn't really a quick reference sort of thing. The question "what gem should I use" is really just asking "what stats are best for my class" which is often a very difficult question to answer. +9 damage isn't even always the right answer, since you may not be hit capped without gemming for it, similarly +sta is only 'right' if you're at 490 defense.
 
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Old 06/12/07, 5:28 PM   #46 (permalink)
Von Kaiser
 
Draenei Shaman
 
Bonechewer
- Non-instant spells will reset your melee swing timer upon their completion. This includes spells that normally have a cast time that are made instant by other means (such as Nature's Swiftness).

Unless the base game functionality changed, I thought that paladins and shamans are the only classes whose autoattack isn't reset when casting instant cast spells. Druids, mages, locks, and priests (and perhaps hunter- mend pet, changing aura?) all have their weapon swing timer reset after casting an instant spell.

I'll try to get on the test server to see if NS by a shaman counts the spell as truly instant, or if the above statement still holds true.

Anyways, I'm not saying that your statement is incorrect; maybe you should just add the pally/shaman part to the list as well?
 
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Old 06/12/07, 5:31 PM   #47 (permalink)
Von Kaiser
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Dragonblight
My understanding of feral dps implies two important things.

Cap your hit rating, since a feral's special and autoattack hit cap is the same.

Agility is better than Str until you can regularly complete 5 CP before your current rip times out on a rip/mangle/shred-to-5 dps rotation. Not having to remangle or rip with less than 5 CP will outweigh the slightly larger gains from Str, but only for Boss/Raid dps.

Additionally, your Staff weapon skill does NOT affect dps in feral forms. 'Feral Weapon Skill' appear to be always capped by level.
 
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Old 06/12/07, 5:53 PM   #48 (permalink)
Bald Bull
 
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Undead Priest
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by Nite_Moogle View Post
This tends to get a little muddy for some classes (especially when Flurry starts getting involved), since then you're in to the area of stat prioritizing and budget equivalence which isn't really a quick reference sort of thing. The question "what gem should I use" is really just asking "what stats are best for my class" which is often a very difficult question to answer. +9 damage isn't even always the right answer, since you may not be hit capped without gemming for it, similarly +sta is only 'right' if you're at 490 defense.
While that's true, such a section seems equivalent to comments like these:

Originally Posted by Nite_Moogle View Post
Healing
- Both 81 healing and Spellsurge are good and effective enchants. There is no wrong answer.

Mage
- +hit will generally provide the best increase in damage per item budget until it is capped at 16%.

Shamans
- Mongoose, Crusader and Potency are all effective weapon enchants (in that order, generally) and none is the wrong answer.
It seems like the purpose of this thread is to be an excellent summary of non-trivial questions that have a generally agreed upon answer. If you have to say "12 stam gems are the best once you have 490 defense", that's still an extremely helpful (and true) statement, even if it's only true 99% of the time.

I'd also suggest that recommending a best gem or set of gems for a given class, at least when one exists, is much simpler than giving a full stat evaluation. Is claiming "9 spell damage is almost always the best gem" any different from saying "+hit provides the best benefit per item budget if you aren't capped"? And that's much simpler than saying "1 spell damage = 3 m/5 = 4 int = 5 stam". "Spell damage is better given the budget" is a generally accepted statement while the specific value tradeoffs are not.
 
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Old 06/12/07, 5:55 PM   #49 (permalink)
Piston Honda
 
Night Elf Hunter
 
Mannoroth
Originally Posted by darkInertia View Post
- Non-instant spells will reset your melee swing timer upon their completion. This includes spells that normally have a cast time that are made instant by other means (such as Nature's Swiftness).

Unless the base game functionality changed, I thought that paladins and shamans are the only classes whose autoattack isn't reset when casting instant cast spells. Druids, mages, locks, and priests (and perhaps hunter- mend pet, changing aura?) all have their weapon swing timer reset after casting an instant spell.

I'll try to get on the test server to see if NS by a shaman counts the spell as truly instant, or if the above statement still holds true.

Anyways, I'm not saying that your statement is incorrect; maybe you should just add the pally/shaman part to the list as well?
I am under the impression that I could spam wing clip and still melee normally, so it wouldn't be resetting my swing timer.